"Three dancers who believe in ingenuity, innovation and intelligence in their art, come together......" Gowri Ramnarayan (December 1st 2007, The Hindu)
December 1st marks the start of the music and dance season in Chennai. Over the last few years I have gradually extricated myself from this mammoth event. Otherwise, even as a teenager in Singapore, I used to believe that being a successful dancer meant dancing in as many sabhas as humanly possible. For various reasons, this notion has been dispelled. Now I just hibernate in December and enjoy the lovely weather!
And so it came as a complete surprise to me when Gowri Ramnarayan called me up one day saying that she would like to write a piece on three of us dancers who were dancing "off the beaten track"- a piece that was specifically for the Music & Dance supplement that is brought out by the Hindu on Dec 1 each year. Last year Vasanthi Sankaranarayanan was asked to write a similar piece in the Indian Express. Somewhere this points to a shift in perception- that there is something that exists by way of dance outside the framework of the December Festival. If this is the case then it is indeed heartening and there is hope, hopefully.
Here's a link to the piece that appeared in the Hindu on December 1st- a conversation between Manjari, Preethi Athreya and myself.
http://www.hindu.com/ms/2007/12/01/stories/2007120150120400.htm
Nirmala
